An Invisible Client

by Victor Methos

  “Marty, calm down. I got this.”

  “Really? Do you even know what you’re looking for? Do you have any idea? You still don’t know if there actually was any negligence on their part. This is insanity, Noah. Stop this now.”

  I shook my head. “I’m going to win this case.”

  “Why? Because you want to?”

  “No,” I shouted, “because I’m the best. I’m the fucking best at what I do, and I’ll be damned if fucking Bob Walcott gets to push us around.”

  I stopped and immediately felt stupid for yelling. Marty just sighed, then leaned down over my chair and looked me in the eyes.

  “This is ego for you. I told you, you’re too attached. You’re too involved in this case. If you really believe in it and don’t want to let it go, fine. Give it to me. I’ll work it, and I’ll get them a good settlement. But you need to get off this case.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Do you remember that case we had the first year we were open? The guy that got sideswiped by that truck.”

  “Ray something. Yeah, I remember. Why?”

  “I wanted to settle and take that first offer. It was a lot of money to us at the time. Six figures. It seemed like all the money in the world. But you said not to take it. Do you remember why?”

  He exhaled loudly through his nose. “I said my gut told me something was wrong with him.”

  “And it turned out our client’s rib had splintered and some of the fragments got into his heart. We settled for five times what they offered us. It was your gut. That’s all we do, Marty. We have spreadsheets and damages tables, we got economists and actuaries who work for us, but really it’s just our guts. My gut’s telling me something is really wrong with this. Something’s just under the surface, and I need to find what it is.”

  He shook his head. “This is different. This is personal for you. That case wasn’t personal for me. It was a calculated risk. This is emotional.”

  We looked at each other for a moment, then he straightened up and said, “Noah, there’s three of us. Majority rules. It’s not to that point yet, but it can be. I don’t want to do it. I want all of us to feel like we can pursue cases we’re passionate about. But I won’t stand by and tell those seventy people relying on us that they’re out of a job because we were passionate about one case.”

  He left the office, the echo of his words bouncing off the walls. I sat for at least ten minutes afterward. Maybe he was right. If I was too close to this case, I wouldn’t be doing Joel or his mother any favors. Not to mention our firm. I didn’t know what to do. I picked up the phone and hesitated a second before punching in the number. Tia picked up on the second ring.

  “I was just thinking about you,” she said.

  “Nothing bad, I hope.”

  “No, not at all. I’m on the beach right now and I thought of the first time you tried to surf.”

  “Is that what you call it? I only remember it as the time I almost drowned.”

  She laughed. A soft, sweet sound that I hadn’t heard in years. It took me back to a time when it seemed like it was us against the world. I pushed the thoughts out of my mind and turned around, watching the sky out of my windows.

  “Have you talked to Rebecca?” I asked.

  “Yeah, actually. She called to say how awesome you are. She said God sent you to them.”

  “Yeah, I think they actually believe that.”

  “She’s always been religious. The whole church thing was lost on me. I didn’t see the point.”

  “Maybe the point is that you have somewhere to turn when you don’t have anywhere to turn.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose, feeling the dull ache of a coming migraine. “I don’t know if I should stay on her case. Marty’s telling me I’m getting too attached. That I can’t see the case for what it’s worth.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think something horrible happened, and if we settle, we’ll never know what it was.”

  “Then you have your answer.”

  “Yeah, but what if I lose us a bunch of money and end up screwing over Rebecca in the process? They offered a million dollars and I told her not to take it. That’s a great settlement for this case.”

  “Noah, if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you will fight with everything you have to get what you want. If you really want more money for them, you’ll get it. That’s why I sent her to you. I know you won’t let her down.” I heard a man’s voice in the background. “Better go. We’re getting on a cruise.”

  “I wish I could’ve taken you on one. I know you always wanted to go.”

  “Good-bye, Noah.”

  I bit my lower lip as I hung up, then let it roll against my teeth before leaning back on my seat. I wouldn’t be withdrawing from this case. Marty was just going to have to toughen up, because I had a feeling it was about to get much harder.

  23

  I had one case on my calendar—a black-and-white slip and fall, which I transferred to one of our associates. Joel Whiting’s case was now the only thing I had to work on. Olivia, four attorneys, four paralegals, and two law clerks were also on the case. It quickly became apparent that I would need at least six more attorneys to handle all the depositions. I couldn’t do 426 depositions by myself.

  I pulled the attorneys from other divisions. This would mean that their cases would get transferred and the firm would have to decline new cases coming in to those attorneys. I didn’t hear any grief about it from Marty or Raimi, but when they saw me in the hall, I could see it in their eyes. They were scared.

  Our firm had three million cash on hand. Personal injury wasn’t like other fields of law, where the clients paid up front. We worked on contingency, which meant that we could sign up a case, spend twenty thousand dollars on it, and not see a dime back for eighteen months. Our cash on hand was how we stayed in business and kept financing cases. If our funds dropped too low, we would either have to stop taking cases altogether, just to pay salaries and operating expenses, or start firing people.

  I left that night after examining the deposition lists we’d made. Most of the depositions, upwards of ninety percent, I guessed, were not going to give me anything. They were the people keeping Pharma-K up and running, but they had no say in any decisions. I didn’t expect them to give me anything, but I still sent the subpoenas.

  I didn’t talk to anybody on my way out of the office. I got into my car and drove around the city for a bit. I stopped at a free concert in a park and rolled down my windows. A band led by a beautiful Latina woman jumped around onstage. A harp player and a sitar player sat quietly near the drummer while the woman and guitarist ran from one side of the stage to the other. The music sounded like rolling water, violins and electric drums, and before long, I realized I’d spent half an hour just sitting there.

  My phone pinged with a text from Olivia just as I looped up toward my house.

  Hey. What’re you doing?

  Just going home. What are you doing?

  Still at the office. Want to meet up for a drink?

  Sure. Blue Door?

  Okay.

  The Blue Door had started downtown as a pub and somehow transformed into an upmarket wine bar. Cops staked out the area around it, pulling over people randomly and hoping to bust a drunk driver. DUIs were big moneymakers for the city. The fines and fees paid by the defendants kept the city courts going and paid the salaries of the police officers and prosecutors on the cases. It was a weird symbiotic relationship that I wasn’t sure either side actually realized was happening.

  Inside, the bar pulsed with its evening crowd. I took a table by the windows and ordered a light red, something French. I didn’t feel like drinking, but I didn’t want to sit there with an empty table, either.
r />   Everybody was laughing and having a good time. I saw starving college students wearing scuffed shoes and rich old men in two-thousand-dollar suits—the whole gamut of the socioeconomic spectrum. Though everyone appeared to be having a good time, something about their body language was off, like being there was cover for the loneliness they actually felt. I got the distinct, frightening impression that none of them were really happy. Was this where I was going to end up?

  Olivia was dropped off by a cab and came in with a smile on her face. She sat down across from me and ordered a Sprite before putting her elbows on the table and leaning toward me. A smile crossed her lips, giving me that odd mix of nausea and excitement I used to get when a pretty girl smiled at me in grade school.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For today. For this case. It must be hard trying to decide between money and helping a friend.”

  “What friend?”

  “Joel is your friend, Noah.”

  I shook my head. “He’s a client. It’s different.”

  “I’m not sure it is.” She scooted up on the chair, making herself more comfortable. “I’m getting some angry calls. People are seriously pissed that we’re subpoenaing them. A lot of them are saying they don’t know anything about the poisonings.”

  “They’re scared. Anyone reveals anything incriminating, and the company will retaliate. Probably sue them as well as fire them. Under Bob’s advice, of course.” I took a sip of the wine. It was sweet, as though it’d been mixed with juice or something. I pushed it away from me. “How’s your mom?”

  “Good. That’s nice of you for always asking. You should meet her tonight.”

  “I’m not exactly the guy you want to take home to Mother. Parents don’t usually like me.”

  “Bullshit, she’ll love you.”

  She blushed, and I knew she hadn’t meant to swear. She was getting more comfortable around me, maybe not seeing me as a boss. I didn’t want her to see me that way, either.

  “The test for the glue came back this afternoon,” I said. “No glue on the bottle Joel’s mother bought. Means it wasn’t resealed.”

  “That’s good, right? I mean, it’s less likely someone tampered with it.”

  I nodded, staring down into the crimson wine. “Marty wants me to give him the case.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “I don’t know. I think it might be the right call. He’ll get it settled, and we’ll be done. Rebecca can move on with her life.”

  “She’s never going to move on. Joel is her only child. There’s nothing out there for her after this. It might just be a case to us, but to her, it’s her entire life.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to talk me into keeping the case?”

  “Because I know you’ll fight for it.”

  “So what if I do?”

  “From what I’ve seen, these Pharma-K guys are scumbags. They hurt children and don’t care one bit about it. Those kinds of people will hurt others again. They’re the insurance adjusters that knew a sixteen-year-old girl couldn’t fight for her mentally ill mother, so they refused to pay. I don’t think Marty cares about that.”

  “You’ve got it backward—I’m the cold-blooded one.”

  She didn’t respond, but her smile told me she wasn’t convinced. She saw something in me. Something I didn’t see.

  I ordered a couple glasses of white wine as we talked, then I had to have Olivia drive. We went to her house—a small home on the west side of the city in an area known for little more than crime and industry—and she said, “Come in. My mom’s still awake.”

  I followed her up the lawn and into the house. It was a quaint house, like a discontinued model that had gone out of style, but I liked it. It smelled like herbs, and the carpets were clean. It was quiet, completely still. In the kitchen, Olivia flipped on the light, then got a couple of sodas out of the fridge and handed me one.

  We sat down at the dining table and talked. She told me how studying for the Bar was going, who she got along with at the office, and who she didn’t get along with. I just listened. She sounded so . . . young. It seemed like as most people grew older, the world made them cynical. That hadn’t happened with her, yet. I got the impression that she was actually shocked that people working together couldn’t get along. Something only the young believed wouldn’t happen.

  She was only seven years younger than I was, but she was from a different generation—one that seemed somehow entitled, but entitled in a good sense of the word. Her generation knew they were supposed to do well and expected it. I didn’t know if that would help them or hinder them in the long term.

  A woman wearing a bathrobe came in, looking frail. Her hair was the same color as Olivia’s, and her face looked worn and tired, but the intelligence that enveloped Olivia shone there, too. Long, thin fingers sat on hands that appeared too thin to be healthy, with trimmed and polished nails. I pictured Olivia sitting on a bed with this woman, trimming and polishing away at her nails as though it was the most normal thing in the world for an adult to be doing. And I felt sorry for them both. Sorry that Olivia had missed her youth to take care of the person who was supposed to take care of her, and sorry that her mother probably understood the pain she had caused her daughter.

  She smiled weakly at me and said, “Olivia, who’s your guest?”

  “This is my friend Noah, Mom.”

  “Hello, Noah.”

  “Hi, Ms. Polley.”

  “Jan is fine.” She went to the cupboard and got down a bottle of pills. She placed two in her mouth, then took a sip of water. “How do you know Olivia?”

  “We work together.”

  She began walking out of the kitchen. “Isn’t that nice.”

  Olivia seemed embarrassed. “Sorry, she’s not much of a talker.”

  “She seems sweet.”

  “Can’t choose our parents, right?” she said. “I sometimes wonder what my dad was like. I didn’t know him at all.”

  “Sometimes it’s better not knowing. But if you could trade, would you?”

  She took a sip of her soda. “No, I wouldn’t. I love my mom. When she has her moments of clarity, I can come to her for advice, we watch television together . . .” She grinned. “The other day she even asked when I was going to give her grandkids.”

  “When are you?”

  “That is the furthest thing from my mind right now. What about you? Do you want kids?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know if I’d want to bring them into this world. It seems like it’s getting darker rather than lighter.”

  “The world’s always been a mess. You can’t change that. You just have to straighten out your little corner of it.”

  “So I take it you do want kids one day?”

  “Lots of them. I don’t want a minute of silence in our house. Might drive my future husband nuts, but he’ll have to learn to deal with it.” Her face grew somber. “This house is always quiet. It’s been quiet for twenty years. I don’t want that for my kids.”

  “My ex wanted kids. The marriage fell apart before that happened, though.”

  “You’ve never talked about your divorce.”

  “There’s not much to talk about. Sometimes, people just grow apart. I was focused so much on building the firm, she got the sense she wasn’t the most important thing in my life. If you’re going to do that, to commit fully to another person and swear to them that you’re going to spend the rest of your life with them, I think they have to be the most important thing to you. I feel terrible for the things I put her through. I can’t even imagine how lonely she must’ve been when I was choosing to work eighteen-hour days. She deserved better.” I twisted the soda in my hand. “What about you? Ever come close?”

  “To marriage? No. I had a serious boyfriend in colle
ge, but he took off because of my mom. I think he saw the writing on the wall that we come as a package.”

  I hesitated before saying, “There are homes that can take care of her.”

  She shook her head. “No, I can’t do that to her. They would treat her like a paycheck. Just wheel her in front of a television and forget about her. I won’t do that. She’s my mom, and she needs my help.”

  “You know, sometimes, not often, but sometimes, I daydream about my dad coming and finding me. That he asks for help. And I wonder if I would.”

  “You would.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do. You don’t seem like the type of guy who wouldn’t help if he could.”

  She didn’t say anything else, but she reached across the table and laid her hand gently over mine. Her fingers warm and soft. I stared at her hands, the smooth skin and the nails, and then moved my hand so that it was holding hers.

  “Well,” I said, “I better go.”

  She nodded. We stared at each other for a second, then I rose from the table. I had the impression that if I’d wanted to stay the night, she wouldn’t have objected, but I didn’t want that from her right now. That was odd for me because that seemed to be the only thing I had wanted from women ever.

  As I got up to leave, she kissed me on the cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you’re my boss and all.”

  I couldn’t help but grin. “Good night, Ms. Polley.”

  “Good night, Mr. Byron.”

  I had that familiar feeling of nausea and excitement in my gut again as I walked to my car.

  24

  The next couple of weeks were a flurry of activity. All the depositions had been set so that I could attach them in my reply to Bob’s motion for dismissal if I found anything good. We’d subpoenaed four former employees in California, two in Hong Kong, two in Texas, three in New Jersey, one in Iowa, and one in Washington. The rest were, luckily, current employees located in Utah. I pulled four more lawyers from other divisions in the firm. They would be the ones flying around.